Last Sunday, April 29, was World Pinhole Camera Day. In celebration of the momentous holiday I created a solargraphy camera. The image created will be ready in October 2012. Seems a bit long to wait, so in the meantime, here are a few images I created with a digital pinhole ‘lens’ for Nikon. My students and children acted as the subjects for most of the images. Enjoy!

This is another installment of the Veteran Voices Project.

In this episode Howard Pfeifer, Merchant Marine, tells the story of his last night of liberty while on a convoy in the Russian Arctic.

The project is dedicated to capturing, preserving, and sharing the voices, images, and experiences of Pittsburgh area veterans of all branches of service and eras, including peace and war-time service. The Pittsburgh area includes all of southwestern Pennsylvania.

For historical and scholarly purposes, every veteran’s story is carefully preserved and archived in its entirety with the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum.

Recently, We have begun to document the storys of World War Two veterans in partnership with the Veterans Breakfast Club and the Social Voice Project. Together these organizations along with StartPoint Media have created the Veteran Voices of Pittsburgh non profit project.

The project is dedicated to capturing, preserving, and sharing the voices, images, and experiences of Pittsburgh area veterans of all branches of service and eras, including peace and war-time service. The Pittsburgh area includes all of southwestern Pennsylvania.

This emerging initiative transcends traditional oral history presentations by incorporating an innovative transmedia approach, whereby historical narratives are told across multiple media channels and platforms such as radio and television broadcasting, Internet podcasting, web videos, mobile devices, social media, print media, museum exhibits, creative artwork, educational channels, etc.

We use dedicated audiographic, videographic, photographic, and literary techniques to represent veterans’ stories to share with the public. The project’s transmedia design enriches these important life stories so that they become memorable and meaningful living history “experiences” for current and future generations.

Fo historical and scholarly purposes, every veteran’s story is carefully preserved and archived in its entirety with the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

ATSHTF, After The Shit Hits The Fan, is a view of a post apocalyptic world where there are three types of people, those who have, those who need and those that survive. This is the story of a lone survivor living in the shadows of those who have while avoiding the golden hordes of those who need and have already fled the destruction of the inner cities.

This short film experimentation stars Billy Ritter, a Cleveland based artist whose work is often based and created on found material.

His work can be seen here:

http://billyritter.weebly.com/index.html

A collection of winter time images centered on The Mexican War Streets. The usually bright and colorful neighborhood becomes muted when it snows.

A waterfall is an indication that a stream is geologically young and active. The water flows over a resistant bedrock slower upstream and faster downstream causing erosion to occur more quickly downstream. This difference in velocity is caused by the increasing volume as the stream picks up more run off water and the from effects of gravity.

Pounding water and whirlpools increase the rate of erosion even faster at the base of a fall causing the waterfall to increase in size. This erosive action also causes the waterfall to move further up stream at a geologically slow rate. Often the receding erosion created by the waterfall will create a canyon downstream and a rock shelter in the soft rock behind the veil of the falls.

Here at Frankfort Mineral Springs evidence of that geological process is evident. The quarter mile canyon leading to the veiled water fall is sheer and steep. At the current location of the falls rock shelters occur in the canyon walls on both sides. Eventually the the rock outcropping created by the falls will collapse and send larger stones to the base of the falls for further erosion and tumbling downstream. There is evidence of a recent collapse to the right of the Frankfort Mineral Spring fall. It is only a matter of time that the rock shelters created by the falls will succumb to the process of erosion and continue the geologic cycle openly on display.

This collection of images and video record my observations at the water fall’s most geologically active point and the patterns created as the ongoing erosion cycles. I watched the force exerted by the cascading water and can only imagine that sometime in the near future this process will have an observable effect at Frankfort Mineral Springs.

On a cold winter’s Saturday at Gull Point located at the lonely tip of Presque Isle, Pennsylvania, snow falls over the land spit. The view due north over the vast and motionless horizon of water and sky is an unseen Canada. Where water meets shore the sound of eighteen inch waves crashing in an undulating and cyclical pattern. The ebb and flow permeates a relaxing orchestra over the grey winter’s landscape. Lake Erie is a fresh water lake and, like the larger oceans, experiences the phenomenon of the tides, or does it?

The tides are the combined force of the gravitational pull from both the sun and the moon. The breadth and frequency of the tides are based upon the position of the sun and moon in relationship to one and other, the rotation of the earth and the bathymetry, or contours of the land located under very large bodies of water. Other factors that affect the size of the tides are barometric pressure and storm surges.

The scale of Lake Erie along with the other Great Lakes is exponentially smaller than the world’s oceans. At a similarly small exponential rate the Great Lakes do feel the gravitational effects of the tides. In reality the lunar and solar tides affecting Lake Erie amounts only to a few inches. Generally, the waves on Lake Erie are created by wind and weather as it moves from west to east and not by the effects of the sun or moon. As the waves move from open water towards the shore, the inclination of lake floor causes the waves to break as they approach the land creating the crash that fills the air with sound and slowly erodes and transforms Presque Isle.

This collection of images and video record my observations at the wave’s point break and the patterns created as they cycle up and down the sandy coast of Pennsylvania’s lake shore. I noticed as the waves moved in and out another pattern of residual moisture ebbed at a much slower rate and allowed for a beautiful interaction of light where the water from Lake Erie meets the land of Pennsylvania.

Hello Friends of StartPoint Media,

SPM is currently under construction and will be up and running again VERY soon.

Thank you for visiting and for your ongoing support.

Cheers,

Chris and Cara

Benefit Braddock featuring Titus Andronicus and The Hold Steady at the 123 year old Braddock Carnegie Library Music Hall Saturday, November 12, 2011. It was invigorating to see the potential in a grand old space. There are good things to come.

This short film is an experiment in time compression. It is designed to show the creative process between teacher and student. The best way for me to show the process was to speed it up a bit. My good friend, Cleveland based painter, Billy Ritter creatively transformed his garage into a painting studio for two budding artists. His first lesson was additive color, “don’t mix your colors or you’ll get mud”.

You can see more of Billy’s work here:

www.billyritter.weebly.com

This is one segment of a time lapse project I am working on. This portion is from Baughman Rock overlook at Ohiopyle State Park. Enjoy!

This is first episode of The Father Ryan Arts Center Studio 420 TV show that StartPoint Media produced. It aired on Moon Twp. Community Access Televison in September 2011.